The Blog

How Gratitude Can Support Your Financial Goals

By Andy Hayes

We’re coming up on one of our annual holidays, Thanksgiving, that is all about gratitude. Gratitude goes hand in hand with building wealth and successfully reaching your personal finance goals.

Why?

By acknowledging what you have will give you confidence that you can get where you want to go.

Often, especially if you find yourself with significant debt or have a large gap between where your finances are and where your finances want to be, taking stock of what you have accomplished builds confidence and reminds you that you are capable of being smart with money.

One excellent way to practice gratitude with your personal finances is to have a finance date dedicated solely to gratitude. Add up all of the good you have and have done. Acknowledge it. Good job! You are smart with money and you can continue to make great financial choices.

Going forward, make sure that during every finance date, you take a few minutes to review what you’ve accomplished, no matter how small or finite.

You can even build gratitude into your finance goals.

Let’s not make this too complicated: simply put, gratitude feels good. So why not put some gratitude into your SMART finance goals (you are planning goals, right?). Here are some ideas on how to do that:

When you reach a major savings milestone, express gratitude for reaching for that goal but dedicating a portion of your next savings deposit to your favorite charity. Or, stick to your savings plan and volunteer your time – maybe you’ll bump into someone who would use a confidence boost by hearing your savings story.

Cleared off a major debt? Celebrate! Treat yourself to a small luxury that you’d truly enjoy – an artisan chocolate bar, a trip to the museum, afternoon tea at a fancy hotel. Just make sure you pay cash, to reinforce your commitment to always sticking to your financial priorities. It doesn’t have to be something expensive – you could even take an afternoon and go hiking.

Science proves gratitude works!

There are a lot of scientific studies that prove gratitude works. For example, one study proved that telling someone ‘thank you’ can improve their productivity and effectiveness. So if you have a financial advisor, life coach, stock broker, or any individual who is supporting you on your personal finance journey, send them a thank you card.

You know the saying that ‘your wealth is in your health?’ Well, there are numerous studies that link gratitude with good health. So if you want to stay health and fit, both emotionally and physically, then flex those gratitude muscles too!

Even if you have a lot of debt, or are falling short of finance dreams and aspirations, take just a minute every day and acknowledge moving forward towards where you want to be – even if it’s baby steps.